| Oʼodham | |
|---|---|
| Oʼodham ha-ñeʼokĭ, Oʼottham ha-neoki, Oʼodham ñiok | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈʔɔʔɔðam] |
| Native to | United States,Mexico |
| Region | Primarily south-centralArizona and northernSonora |
| Ethnicity | Tohono Oʼodham,Akimel Oʼodham,Hia C-eḍ Oʼodham |
Native speakers | 15,000 (2007)[1] 180monolinguals (1990 census); 1,240 (Mexico, 2020 census)[2] |
| Official status | |
Official language in | One of the national languages of Mexico[3] |
| Regulated by | Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico; various tribal agencies in the United States |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ood |
| Glottolog | toho1245 |
| ELP | O'odham |
 Oʼodham is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.[4] | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Oʼodham: (pronounced[ˈʔɔʔɔðam],English approximation:/ˈoʊ.ɒðəm,-dəm/OH-od(h)-əm) orPapago-Pima is aUto-Aztecan language of southernArizona and northernSonora, Mexico, where theTohono Oʼodham (formerly called the Papago) andAkimel Oʼodham (traditionally called Pima) reside.[5] In 2000 there were estimated to be approximately 9,750 speakers in the United States and Mexico combined, although there may be more due to underreporting.
It is the 10th most-spoken indigenous language in the United States, and the 3rd most-spokenindigenous language in Arizona (afterWestern Apache andNavajo). It is the third-most spoken language inPinal County, Arizona, and the fourth-most spoken language inPima County, Arizona.
Approximately 8% of Oʼodham speakers in the US speak English "not well" or "not at all", according to results of the 2000 Census. Approximately 13% of Oʼodham speakers in the US were between the ages of 5 and 17, and among the younger Oʼodham speakers, approximately 4% were reported as speaking English "not well" or "not at all".
Native names for the language, depending on the dialect and orthography, includeOʼodham ha-ñeʼokĭ,Oʼottham ha-neoki, andOʼodham ñiok.
The Oʼodham language has a number of dialects.[6]
Due to the paucity of data on the linguistic varieties of theHia C-eḍ Oʼodham, this section currently focuses on the Tohono Oʼodham and Akimel Oʼodham dialects only.
The greatestlexical andgrammatical dialectal differences are between the Tohono Oʼodham (or Papago) and the Akimel Oʼodham (or Pima) dialect groupings. Some examples:
| Tohono Oʼodham | Akimel Oʼodham | English |
|---|---|---|
| ʼaʼad | hotṣ | to send |
| nhenhida | tamiam | to wait for |
| s-hewhogĭ | s-heubagĭ | to be cool |
| sisiṣ | hoʼiumi(butsi꞉ṣpakuḍ, stapler) | to fasten |
| pi꞉ haʼicug | pi ʼac | to be absent |
| wia | ʼoʼoid | hunttr. |
There are other major dialectal differences between northern and southern dialects, for example:
| Early Oʼodham | Southern | Northern | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| *ʼa꞉phi꞉m | ʼa꞉ham | ʼa꞉pim | you (plural) |
| *cu꞉khug | cu꞉hug | cu꞉kug | flesh |
| *ʼe꞉kheg | ʼe꞉heg | ʼe꞉keg | to be shaded |
| *ʼu꞉pham | ʼu꞉hum | ʼu꞉pam | (go) back |
The Cukuḍ Kuk dialect has null in certain positions where other Tohono Oʼodham dialects have a bilabial:
| Other TO dialects | Chukuḍ Kuk | English |
|---|---|---|
| jiwia, jiwa | jiia | to arrive |
| ʼuʼuwhig | ʼuʼuhig | bird |
| wabṣ | haṣ | only |
| wabṣaba, ṣaba | haṣaba | but |
Oʼodham is anagglutinative language, where words use suffix complexes for a variety of purposes with severalmorphemes strung together.
Oʼodham phonology has a typical Uto-Aztecan inventory distinguishing 19 consonants and 5 vowels.[7]
| Labial | Dental | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | d͡ʒ | g | ||
| Fricative | ðs | ʂ | h | ||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Flap | ɭ | ||||||
The retroflex consonants areapicalpostalveolar.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | ɨ ɨː | ʊuː |
| Mid | ə | ɔ ɔː | |
| Low | a aː |
Most vowels distinguish two degrees of length: long and short, and some vowels also showextra-short duration (voicelessness).
Papago/ɨ/ is pronounced[ʌ] in Pima.
Additionally, in common with many northern Uto-Aztecan languages, vowels and nasals at end of words aredevoiced. Also, a shortschwa sound, either voiced or unvoiced depending on position, is often interpolated between consonants and at the ends of words.
There are two orthographies commonly used for the Oʼodham language: Alvarez–Hale and Saxton. The Alvarez–Hale orthography is officially used by theTohono Oʼodham Nation and the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community, and is used in this article, but the Saxton orthography is also common and is official in the Gila River Indian Community. It is relatively easy to convert between the two, the differences between them being largely no more than different graphemes for the same phoneme, but there are distinctions made by Alvarez–Hale not made by Saxton.
| Phoneme | Alvarez–Hale | Saxton | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | aʼaʼal | aaʼal | baby |
| /b/ | bban | bban | coyote |
| /tʃ/ | ccehia | chchehia | girl |
| /ð/ | ddaak | ththahk | nose |
| /ɖ/ | ḍmeḍ | dmed | run |
| /d/ | ḏjuḏum | djudum | bear |
| TO/ɨ/, AO/ʌ/ | eʼeʼeb | eeʼeb | stop crying |
| /ɡ/ | ggogs | ggogs | dog |
| /h/ | hhaʼicu | hhaʼichu | something |
| TO/i/, AO/ɨ/ | iʼiibhai | iihbhai | prickly pear cactus |
| /dʒ/ | jjuukĭ | jjuhki | rain |
| /k/ | kkeek | kkehk | stand |
| /ɭ/ | lluulsi | lluhlsi | candy |
| /m/ | mmuunh | mmuhni | bean(s) |
| /n/ | nnaak | nnahk | ear |
| /ɲ/ | nhnheʼe,mu꞉nh | n,nineʼe,muhni | sing, bean(s) |
| /ŋ/ | nganghil,wa꞉nggo | ng,nanghil,wahngo | angel, bank |
| /ɔ/ | oʼoʼohan | ooʼohan | write |
| /p/ | ppi | ppi | not |
| /s/ | ssitol | ssitol | syrup |
| /ʂ/ | ṣṣoiga | shshoiga | pet |
| /t/ | ttoobĭ | ttohbi | cottontail(Sylvilagus audubonii) |
| /u/ | uʼuus | uuhs | tree, wood |
| /v/ | vvainom | vvainom | knife |
| /w/ | wwuai | wwuai | male deer |
| /j/ | ypayaso | ypa-yaso | clown |
| /ʔ/ | ʼʼaʼan | ʼaʼan | feather |
| /ː/ | doubled voweljuukĭ (seecolon (letter)) | hjuhki | rain |
The Saxton orthography does not mark word-initial/ʔ/ or extra-short vowels. Final⟨i⟩ generally corresponds to Hale–Alvarez⟨ĭ⟩ and final⟨ih⟩ to Hale–Alvarez⟨i⟩:
There is some disagreement among speakers as to whether the spelling of words should be only phonetic or whether etymological principles should be considered as well.
For instance,oamajda vs.wuamajda ("frybread"; the spellingsoamacda andwuamacda are also seen) derives fromoam (a warm color roughly equivalent to yellow or brown). Some believe it should be spelled phonetically aswuamajda, reflecting the fact that it begins with/ʊa/, while others think its spelling should reflect the fact that it is derived fromoam (oam is itself a form ofs-oam, so while it could be spelledwuam, it is not since it is just a different declension of the same word).[citation needed]
Oʼodham has relatively free word order within clauses; for example, all of the following sentences mean "the boy brands the pig":[8]
In principle, these could also mean "the pig brands the boy", but such an interpretation would require an unusual context.
Despite the general freedom of sentence word order, Oʼodham is fairly strictlyverb-second in its placement of the auxiliary verb (in the above sentences, it isʼo):
Verbs are inflected foraspect (imperfectivecipkan, perfectivecipk),tense (future imperfectivecipkanad), andnumber (pluralcicpkan). Number agreement displaysabsolutive behavior: verbs agree with the number of the subject in intransitive sentences, but with that of the object in transitive sentences:
The main verb agrees with the object for person (ha- in the above example), but the auxiliary agrees with the subject:ʼa꞉ñi ʼañ g kokji ha-cecposid "I am branding the pigs".
Three numbers are distinguished in nouns: singular, plural, and distributive, though not all nouns have distinct forms for each. Most distinct plurals are formed by reduplication and often vowel loss plus other occasional morphophonemic changes, and distributives are formed from these by gemination of the reduplicated consonant:[9]
Oʼodham adjectives can act both attributively modifying nouns and predicatively as verbs, with no change in form.
The following is an excerpt from Oʼodham Piipaash Language Program:Taḏai ("Roadrunner").[10] It exemplifies the Salt River dialect.
In Saxton orthography:
The following is a song fromOʼodham Hohoʼok Aʼagida (Oʼodham Legends and Lore) by Susanne Ignacio Enos, and Dean and Lucille Saxton.[11] It exemplifies the "Storyteller dialect".
In Saxton orthography:
English:
El pima bajo es una lengua yutoazteca (yutonahua) de la rama tepimana. Otras tres lenguas de esta rama son el tepehuano del norte, el tepehuano del sur o sureste y el antiguo pápago, actualmente denominadooʼotam en Sonora ytohono oʼodham yakimel oʼodham (pima) en Arizona.
